Treasures from the Attic: The Extraordinary Story of Anne Frank's Family

585 Pages·2011·11.3 MB·English

by  Mirjam Pressler

Translation copyright © 2011 by Damion Searls
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by
Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in
Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.doubleday.com
Originally published in Germany as “Grüsse und Küsse an alle”: Die
Geschichte der Familie von Anne Frank by S. Fischer Verlag GmbH,
Frankfurt am Main, in 2009. Copyright © 2009
by Mirjam Pressler and Gertrude Elias.
Copyright © 2009 S. Fischer Verlag GmbH.
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random
House, Inc.
Anne Frank Photograph © Anne Frank Fonds,
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Pressler, Mirjam.
[Grüsse und Küsse an alle. English]
Treasures from the attic : the extraordinary story of Anne Frank’s
family/by Mirjam Pressler with Gerti Elias; translated from the
German by Damion Searls.— IST U.S. ed.
p. cm.
“Originally published in Germany as Grüsse and Küsse an alle:
Die Geschichte der Familie von Anne Frank by S. Fischer Verlag
GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, in 2009” — T.p. verso.
I. Frank, Anne,1929-1945—Family. 2. Frank family.
3. Jews—Germany—Biography. 4. Jews—Netherlands—
Biography. 5. Jews—Switzerland—Biography.
I. Elias, Gerti,1933- II.Title.
DS134.42. F73 P7413 2011
940.53’180922—dc22
[B]
2011000126
eISBN: 978-0-38553387-4
v3.1
Contents
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
PROLOGUE
1. MANY GOOD AND BEAUTIFUL THINGS
2. WHERE WE COME FROM
3. FAMILY LIFE
4. THE SIBLINGS
5. BUT THE ONES WHO STAYED WERE SCATTERED TO THE WINDS
6. DAILY LIFE AND DISTANT LONGINGS
7. THE TIME WITHOUT LETTERS
8. UNCERTAINTY
9. YOU CAN’T LET YOURSELF GET DEPRESSED
10. STARTING OUT
11. YEARS ON THE ROAD
12. THE GLOBE-TROTTER
13. THE PLAY
14. OUR REASON FOR BEING HERE
15. THE MOVIE
16. HOMESICK FOR HERBSTGASSE
17. HOME AT LAST
18. WINTER ON AUTUMN LANE
19. A NEW PURPOSE IN LIFE
EPILOGUE
AFTERWORD
STERN/FRANK/ELIAS FAMILY TREE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PHOTO INSERT
PHOTO CREDITS
Publisher’s Note
In 2001, as described in the Afterword, a cache of
several thousand letters, photographs, and other
documents was found in the attic of the house in Basel
belonging to Buddy Elias, Anne Frank’s cousin. It was
soon realized that these documents were of major
significance for the history of the Frank family, and cast
a new and clearer light on Anne Frank herself. These
papers, organized and edited by Buddy Elias’s wife, Gerti
Elias—including both previously published letters and
documents and some that have never been published—
form the basis of the following family history. Mirjam
Pressler, who wrote the chronicle that contains them, is
the German translator of the Definitive Edition of Anne
Frank’s diary and a winner of the German Book Prize in
2006 for her literary life’s work.
In the German edition, letters are quoted exactly as
written, without modernizing the German orthography,
correcting spelling mistakes, or filling in abbreviations;
punctuation is added for clarity in a few places, and
obvious typos in typewritten letters are corrected, but
the edition aims to preserve the authentic feel of the
personal documents. These features have been carried
over as much as possible into the English translation.
Prologue
Sils-Maria, in the Upper Engadine valley in Switzerland—
a summer day, 1935. A slim, well-dressed man leaves
Hotel Waldhaus, where he has met with an executive of
the Pomosin company to report on the progress of their
Amsterdam office. The man walks briskly up the road
that runs right through the middle of the forest and in a
few minutes reaches Villa Laret.
As he steps out from between the trees, it lies before
him, in the middle of a parklike field filled with trees,
more like a little castle than a villa. The windows are so
clean and scrubbed that they flash in the sun.
The man walks up the wide, well-raked gravel road. He
smiles when he catches sight of the swing hanging
between two tall trees—a wide platform with a railing,
big enough to comfortably fit a table and chairs. Two
children are jumping up and down on the platform at the
moment, making it start to swing. They are laughing and
screaming. Two dachshunds hop around under the
swing, yapping excitedly, but no matter how hard they
try, they can’t manage to jump onto the swing;
sometimes a dog falls onto its back in its failed attempt
and flails around kicking its short legs until it turns right
side up, then it starts trying again to jump up onto the
swing. The children double over with laughter. The boy
is about ten years old, the girl six.
“Not so loud!” the man shouts at the children.
They both stop for a moment. “Daddy, do you know
what Auntie O. said this morning?” the girl screams. He
steps closer and shakes his head. “Yesterday she asked
her maid where her washcloth was, in French of course,
and then she wanted Aunt Leni to tell her the German
word for it. ‘Waschlappen,’ Aunt Leni said. And then this
morning, she said to her maid: ‘Where is my wasch-
lapin?’ ” The children giggled. “Get it, Daddy? She asked
where her wash-rabbit was. Isn’t that funny?”
He nods. “Yes, that really is funny. But don’t make so
much noise, so you don’t disturb all the ladies and
gentlemen.”
They both nod. Then they take each other’s hands and
start playing again, only the slightest bit quieter than
before. The children are Buddy Elias and his cousin Anne
Frank, and the man is Otto Frank, taking a holiday with
his younger daughter at Villa Laret.
About a dozen ladies and gentlemen are sitting on the
terrace, at tables covered with porcelain cups and
dishes, the ladies with broad-brimmed hats and
parasols. The gentlemen, who presumably do not dare to
take off their jackets despite the hot weather, are
wearing straw summer hats. In any case, the heat is
more bearable here, in the middle of the forest, than up
on the treeless mountain slopes.
Next to the wide double doors that lead to the salon,
two maids with little white aprons and matching white
lace caps are standing next to the serving cart that holds
the tea and coffee pots and plates loaded with petits
fours and cakes, ready to hurry over and serve any guest
who signals for them.